Joel Barnett

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British politician (1923-2014)

title: "Joel Barnett" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1923-births", "2014-deaths", "bbc-governors", "councillors-in-greater-manchester", "labour-party-(uk)-mps-for-english-constituencies", "labour-party-(uk)-life-peers", "members-of-the-privy-council-of-the-united-kingdom", "people-educated-at-the-central-grammar-school-for-boys", "politics-of-the-metropolitan-borough-of-oldham", "politics-of-the-metropolitan-borough-of-rochdale", "uk-mps-1964–1966", "uk-mps-1966–1970", "uk-mps-1970–1974", "uk-mps-1974", "uk-mps-1974–1979", "uk-mps-1979–1983", "jewish-english-politicians", "chief-secretaries-to-the-treasury", "life-peers-created-by-elizabeth-ii"] description: "British politician (1923-2014)" topic_path: "politics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Barnett" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British politician (1923-2014) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

Field	Value
honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
name	The Lord Barnett
honorific-suffix	PC
image	The Lord Barnett 2014.png
caption	Barnett's last appearance at House of Lords questions.
office	Chair of the Public Accounts Committee
term_start	July 1979
term_end	9 June 1983
predecessor	Edward du Cann
successor	Robert Sheldon
office1	Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
term_start1	4 May 1979
term_end1	14 July 1979
leader1	James Callaghan
predecessor1	Peter Rees
term_start2	22 July 1970
term_end2	5 March 1974
leader2	Harold Wilson
predecessor2	Dick Taverne
successor2	Tom Boardman
office3	Chief Secretary to the Treasury
term_start3	5 March 1974
term_end3	4 May 1979
primeminister3	Harold Wilson
James Callaghan
predecessor3	Tom Boardman
successor3	John Biffen
office4	Member of the House of Lords
status4	Lord Temporal
termlabel4	Life peerage
term_start4	30 September 1983
term_end4	1 November 2014
office5	Member of Parliament
for Heywood and Royton
term_start5	15 October 1964
term_end5	13 May 1983
predecessor5	Tony Leavey
successor5	Constituency Abolished
birth_date
birth_place	Manchester, England
death_date
death_place	Manchester, England
party	Labour
::

Career

Barnett was born in Manchester, the son of Jewish tailor Louis and wife Ettie, and was educated at Badkindt Hebrew School and Manchester Central Grammar School. He worked as an accountant. He was elected a councillor on Prestwich Borough Council 1956-1959 and was treasurer of Manchester Fabian Society. Barnett stood in Runcorn in 1959 without success. He was elected member of parliament for Heywood and Royton in 1964. He was a member of the Public Accounts Committee from January 1966.

Barnett served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1974 to 1979, gaining a seat in the cabinet from 1977 onwards, and was Denis Healey's right-hand man in the Callaghan Government. During this time he oversaw the devising of what is known as the Barnett Formula by which public spending is apportioned between England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. He subsequently joked about the strange and unexpected form of immortality that was accorded to him by "having his own formula". Following the Scotland Act 1998 and devolution, he argued that the Formula was unfair to England and should be abandoned or revised. He reiterated this view in 2014 shortly before the Scottish independence referendum, calling the Formula unsustainable and saying it had become an embarrassment.

Barnett held the Chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee from 1979 to 1983. He published a memoir Inside the Treasury in 1982, describing his experience as chief secretary. Barnett's Commons seat having been abolished by boundary changes, he was created a life peer as Baron Barnett, of Heywood and Royton in Greater Manchester on 30 September 1983. He served on select committees in the House of Lords including the European Union Committee, the Economic Affairs Committee and the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. He died on 1 November 2014, aged 91.

References

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29877123 Lord Barnett, creator of formula for UK spending allocations, dies], BBC News, 3 November 2014
"Joel Barnett".
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11205400/Lord-Barnett-obituary.html "Lord Barnett – obituary"], ''The Telegraph'', 3 November 2014
[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/800695.stm Call for funding shake-up], BBC News, 22 June 2000
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11100400/My-funding-formula-for-Scotland-is-a-terrible-mistake-Lord-Barnett-admits.html My funding formula for Scotland is a 'terrible mistake', Lord Barnett admits], ''The Telegraph'', 16 September 2014
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/03/lord-barnett Lord Barnett obituary], ''The Guardian'', 3 November 2014
{{London Gazette. (5 October 1983)
He was appointed vice-chairman of the [[Board of Governors of the BBC]] by Conservative Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] in 1986 and held the post until 1993, during which period he partook in the private meeting when Chairman [[Marmaduke Hussey]] told Director-General [[Alasdair Milne]] he would have to leave the BBC.DG: The Memoirs of a British Broadcaster. p. 201.

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